There. Second shelf, near the end, a box faded to the color of weak tea. A man and a woman sitting on a fence by a dirt road, the man with his hat pushed back, the woman with her legs crossed and a look on her face like she'd already won the argument. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. Clark Gable. Claudette Colbert. Frank Capra. Five Academy Awards, it said along the top, in gold letters that had mostly worn off.
She reached for it.
So did someone else.
Their hands arrived at the same moment, from opposite directions, his from the left and hers from the right, and closed on the box together, his fingers on the spine and hers on the open edge, so that for one long second they held it between them like two people carrying a very small, very light coffin.
Theda looked up.
He was tall, and wet, and had apparently also run here, because his hair, which was dark and thick and longer than a man's hair was supposed to be in the year of our Lord 1985, was plastered flat on one side and standing straight up on the other, as if he'd been running with his head tilted. He wore a navy blue jacket with a patch on the shoulder, and under it a light blue shirt with a name stitched over the pocket in red script that she couldn't read upside down. He had a big, mobile, Italian kind of face, the kind of face that was probably very good at funerals and very good at weddings and not much use at poker. At this moment it was making an expression of polite and total disbelief.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi," said Theda.
Neither of them let go.
"I think," he said carefully, "I had this first."
"I don't think you did."
"I saw it from the door. I was coming straight for it. I had a trajectory."
"I've been standing here," Theda said, "reading the cards."
"For how long? I came in right behind you. I held the door. You didn't notice because you were busy being a waterfall." He glanced down at her feet. "You've lost a shoe."
"I'm aware I've lost a shoe."